The New Covenant
10 Friday
December 3
Part 6
What characteristics cause the new covenant to be superior to the
ITS
old covenant? Heb. 8:6, 7.
(See RSV.)
IPERIORITY
The "new covenant" is a continuation of the Edenic-
Abrahamic-Sinaitic (Mosaic) covenants. There is in them all an
essential unity and continuity. The new covenant is the renewal
of the old covenant with features that render the new covenant
superior:
1.
Superiority of the law written in the heart.
Under the old
covenant—we will be obedient—the law was written on tablets of
stone (Ex. 24:12; 31:18; 34:1, 28), the intent of which was to be-
come implanted in man. In the new, eternal covenant—I will
make—the same law (which clearly means that the law has no
fault) is to be written on the hearts of believers to cause God's will
to spread through the believer's will.
2.
Superiority of obedience.
The trouble with the old cov-
enant in Moses' day and later was not with the covenant-making
God, with the moral law, or with God's promises of a redeemer,
but with the people who "did not continue in my covenant"
(Heb. 8:9, RSV) and "which [covenant] they broke" (Jer. 31:32,
RSV). The demand for obedience remains the same in both old
and new covenants; but in the new, obedience through faith is
made possible by the grace of the Christ who has come.
3.
Superiority of Christ's heavenly high priesthood.
The
levitical priests were weak men, sinful and mortal, serving in an
earthly tabernacle, a copy only of the true sanctuary in heaven.
(See Heb. 7:23, 27, 28; 8:2, 4, 5; 9:1.) Their sacrifices were ani-
mal sacrifices, the blood of which could not itself take away sins
(Heb. 10:1-4). The sacrifices had to be brought repeatedly
(10:11). Christ's high priesthood is superior because He is very
God of very God (Heb. 1:3), a "once for all" sacrifice (Heb.
10:10-14, RSV) obtaining eternal redemption for us (Heb. 1:3;
10:12, 13; 12:2), ministering the benefits of His blood in the real,
original sanctuary in heaven (Heb. 9:12), thus providing access to
the very presence of God (Heb. 10:19-24).
4.
Superiority of forgiveness.
God's forgiveness was experi-
enced by the penitent in the period of the Sinai covenant (Ex.
34:6, 7; Lev. 4:20, 26, 31, 35; 19:22; Ps. 103:12; Isa. 38:17; 43:25;
Neh. 9:17). But the forgiveness was a looking forward to the for-
giveness secured by the blood of Christ (Heb. 9:15), "shed for
many for the remission of sins" (Matt. 26:28). In the old cov-
enant, sin was forgiven in view of Christ's coming death on the
cross. To this the sacrifices pointed. But in the new covenant,
forgiveness is bestowed on the basis of what our Lord accom-
plished on the cross.
Am I living today on the basis of the old covenant, or is my life
conducted under the blessings of the new covenant?
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